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FRI, 11 JAN 2002 22:13:19 GMT

Exhumation of Mass Graves Ends

In the Shadow of Crime

The remains of 427 people have been exhumed so far from mass graves in
Serbia. These are probably the bodies of ethnic Albanians killed in
fighting that ended on June 11, 1999. Except Slobodan Milosevic and
three of his police collaborators, no other possible suspects have been
mentioned.

AIM Belgrade, December 24, 2001

To this day only one of what appears to be a series of organized
attempts to cover up crimes committed by the Milosevic regime in Kosovo
and Metohija has been reconstructed with a degree of reliability, and,
of course, not in full. Shortly before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
began, in the night between March 20 and March 21, 1999, a freezer truck
was dumped into the Danube near the town of Tekija, about 200 kilometers
east of Belgrade. Two weeks later, the truck surfaced: a police
investigation determined that it contained the remains of 86 men, women
and children. On orders from Gen. Vlastimir Djordjevic, then head of the
Public Security Department of the Serbian Interior Ministry,
investigators were called off and the case was declared top secret: the
bodies were loaded onto two trucks and taken to Belgrade, "for autopsy."

Two years later, at the beginning of May 2001, Gen. Vlastimir Djordjevic
was retired, only to shortly afterwards disappear in an unknown
direction. From that moment on, the Serbian Interior Ministry has been
intensely communicating with the public and releasing considerable
information about the freezer truck case. Two key documents were an
order to remove all traces of crimes in Kosovo and Metohija issued by
Slobodan Milosevic in mid-March 1999 at a meeting with then interior
minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Public Security Service head Vlastimir
Djordjevic, State Security Service (secret police) head Radomir
Markovic, and "others," whose identity remains
undisclosed. Slobodan Milosevic is currently in Scheveningen, Vlajko
Stojiljkovic has been indicted by the Hague International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and is an MP in the federal
Parliament, and Radomir Markovic has been convicted of revealing state
secrets (whose nature has not been explained). Meanwhile at three
locations in Serbia a total of five mass graves containing the remains
of at least 427 persons have been dug up, and it has been determined
that at another location there are at least another three mass graves,
and at a third, one more.

At the beginning of June an expert team from Belgrade University's
Institute of Forensic Medicine began exhumation of the first mass grave
found on the Special Operations Unit's May 13 training center, along the
Zemun-Batajnica road, near Belgrade. In a relatively small, 3x3m pit
body parts of at least 36 people, including eight children and an eight
months old fetus were buried, all dressed in civilian clothes. The
condition of the remains has prevented the team from determining the
cause of their death: only two bullets were found on the spot. Some of
the remains showed certain signs of burning: the archaeological part of
the team managed to determine that there had been an attempt to burn the
bodies -- they were piled up on a pyre of planks about the size of
railroad ties. Seven identity cards were found in the grave, of which
six were issued to individuals with the family name Berisha, all of them
from the same street in Suva Reka. One of the few documents was dated
March 1, 1999, which could mean that at least one person was killed
after that date.

In July and August 2001 another two mass graves in Petrovo Selo, near
Kladovo, where another special forces training camp is located, were
exhumed. A total of 74 bodies were recovered, 16 from one grave, and 58
from the other. A team from the Nis Forensic Medicine Center had a much
easier job because the bodies were put in sacks or wrapped in plastic
sheeting before being transported and buried. Only one female body was
found. Later reports confirmed that among them were the bodies of three
ethnic Albanians with U.S. citizenship. In the spring of 1999, they were
sentenced to 15 days in prison for illegally entering Yugoslavia and
were to be deported afterwards. However, they disappeared after being
released from prison under unclear circumstances. According to what
little information is available, the U.S. has asked that the identity of
these three KLA volunteers be determined by DNA tests. All the exhumed
bodies were dressed in civilian clothes and, according to Vujadin
Otasevic, the forensic team's head, most "had marks left by bullets."

The exhumation continued in September when a mass grave was unearthed at
the spot where the Derventa River runs into Lake Perucac, near Bajina
Basta in western Serbia. From this mass grave 48 bodies were recovered.
The Humanitarian Law Fund warned that yet another freezer truck was
dumped into the lake during the NATO bombing as early as May 23, in
letters sent to the speaker of the Serbian Legislature and Serbia's
justice and interior ministers. The fund's claims that the truck had
been dumped into the lake and that police knew about it were denied by
local authorities until the beginning of September, when information was
published on the exhumation and the autopsy performed by the Institute
of Pathology and Forensic Medicine of the Belgrade Military Hospital. Of
48 bodies, 38 were male, one was female, and the sex of nine could not
be established. According to autopsy results, all were adults with
lethal wounds inflicted by small arms. They had been buried for about
two years. The condition of the remains indicated that they had spent
some time in the water. Most of them were dressed in civilian clothes.

In mid September the last exhumation was carried out at the 13 May
Training Center, near Belgrade. In a pit large enough to hold the truck
that transported them, the remains of 269 people were discovered, all
males of different age. According to an official announcement by the
Belgrade District Court, some bodies bore marks indicating exposure to
high temperature which could mean a failed attempt at burning them.
Their wounds were caused by firearms and their clothes were civilian.

In addition to classical elements used for identification, including
personal documents and, at least in one case an Albanian army ID tag,
samples for DNA tests have been taken. The process was observed by
representatives of the ICTY, OSCE, the Belgrade Humanitarian Law Fund,
and the International Commission for Missing Persons. At this point
forensic reports pertaining to the first mass grave in Batajnica, and
the two in Petrovo Selo, where the bodies have been reburied, are
complete.

As far as the more than 300 bodies dug out in Batajnica are concerned,
they have been stored in on-site underground tunnels until all reports
are completed, which might take until next spring.

Domestic exhumation and forensic experts, probably thanks to ten years
of war in the former Yugoslavia, are among the most experienced in the
world. They stress the difficulties they encountered in determining even
the number of bodies, because some were buried twice or three times,
because at least in two cases they spent some time in the water, and
because the bodies were fragmented during transport and while being
buried by bulldozers. Except in the first grave in Batajnica, among the
dead there are no women and children, and some of the experts say that
regardless of the civilian clothes found in the graves, it is not
certain that they were actually civilians, because many bodies had
several layers of clothing and shaving kits.

Police have reliable data indicating that there are at least three more
mass graves at the Batajnica training camp, and at least one in the
region of Vranje in southern Serbia. According to Police Capt. Dragan
Karleusa, who is in charge of the investigation, there also is a mass
grave under the Leskovac-Bujanovac road, in Vranje municipality. The
bodies were buried in some of the craters created by NATO bombs in 1999,
that were later covered with concrete and asphalt. There are five such
locations near Vranje, and the exact location of the mass grave has not
been determined.

News of the discovery and unearthing of mass graves was in the media
focus from the beginning of May until the end of June, 2001. The
opposition believes this was a deliberate campaign meant to prepare the
public for the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague tribunal.
This explanation was not rejected by certain members of the ruling bloc,
as well as by certain intellectuals who perceive themselves as
"protectors of Serbia's national interests." Because of this, at least
until now, there has been no serious confrontation with crimes committed
by "us," regardless of whether they were invented on orders from the
West, whether they are smaller, the same, or greater than the crimes
committed by the other side, which provoked them, or whether there are
something that only Slobodan Milosevic will be held responsible for. The
exhumation was undeniable proof not only of the crimes themselves, but
of the crime of trying to cover it all up as well. The investigation so
far has not resulted in a single
indictment, despite the fact that dozens of people, mostly police
officers, participated in the coverup. Moreso, even Serbian Interior
Minister Dusan Mihajlovic justifies their participation in transporting
the bodies and their secret burial by duress, fear for one's life or
job, following orders, lack of knowledge...

It turned out that all this failed to silence the witnesses, or at least
did not silence them at the point when discovery of the crimes, whatever
the reason, became unavoidable. What can cause much more concern,
however, is the fact that even in cases where the name of the victim has
been determined, there are still no signs, at least not public, that
efforts to catch the culprits are underway. In other words, if the
investigation has discovered that several members of the Berisha family
have been killed in Suva Reka, the Serbian Interior Ministry has to have
data on police units operating in the area in 1998 and 1999. Everything
else is a routine job. The lack of any indication that such an
investigation has been launched only strengthens the arguments of the
new government's critics, who accuse it of being unprepared, hesitant,
or incapable of facing the magnitude of the crimes, even in terms of
police action, if in no other way.